Author: Chris Henrichsen

By Maura Dolan

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

San Francisco —

A federal judge in San Francisco decided today that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry, striking down Proposition 8, the voter approved ballot measure that banned same-sex unions.

U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker said Proposition 8, passed by voters in November 2008, violated the federal constitutional rights of gays and lesbians to marry the partners of their choice.. His ruling is expected to be appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and then up to theU.S. Supreme Court.

“Plaintiffs challenge Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the judge wrote. “Each challenge is independently meritorious, as Proposition 8 both unconstitutionally burdens the exercise of the fundamental right to marry and creates an irrational classification on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Vaughn added: “Plaintiffs seek to have the state recognize their committed relationships, and plaintiffs’ relationships are consistent with the core of the history, tradition and practice of marriage in the United States.”

Ultimately, the judge concluded that Proposition 8 “fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.”

Walker, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, heard 16 witnesses summoned by opponents of Proposition 8 and two called by proponents during a 2½-week trial in January.

Walker’s historic ruling in Perry vs. Schwarzenegger relied heavily on the testimony he heard at trial. His ruling listed both factual findings and his conclusions about the law.

Voters approved the ban by a 52.3% margin six months after the California Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was permitted under the state Constitution.

The state high court later upheld Proposition 8 as a valid amendment to the state Constitution.

An estimated 18,000 same-sex couples married in California during the months that it was legal, and the state continues to recognize those marriages.

The federal challenge was filed on behalf of a gay couple in Southern California and a lesbian couple in Berkeley. They are being represented by former Solicitor General Ted Olson, a conservative, and noted litigator David Boies, who squared off against Olson in Bush vs. Gore.

A Los Angeles-based group formed to fight Proposition 8 has been financing the litigation.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown refused to defend Proposition 8, prodding the sponsors of the initiative to hire a legal team experienced in U.S. Supreme Court litigation.

Backers of Proposition 8 contended that the legal burden was on the challengers to prove there was no rational justification for voting for the measure. They cited as rational a view that children fare best with both a father and a mother.

But defense witnesses conceded in cross-examination that studies show children reared from birth by same-sex couples fared as well as those born to opposite-sex parents and that marriage would benefit the families of gays and lesbians.

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

Not sure what to make of this at the moment, but I am interested in your initial reactions.

In Plato’s dialogue Crito, Socrates tells his friend Crito that he cannot flee his death sentence and impose upon himself exile. He is an Athenian and everything he has become, all the things that make him Socrates, are the result of Athenian culture and Athenian institutions.

I sometimes feel similarly towards the University of Utah.

My time at the University of Utah was a struggle. Long commutes. Financial struggles. I was not a favorite of the faculty. By having kids and a wife who worked, my commitment to the scholarly pursuit was often questioned.

I am a Ute officially because I got two degrees there, my BA and MA. Both are in political science. I actually never lived on campus or even in Salt Lake County, but I spent about 5 years there as a student. It was there as a junior that I fell in love with political theory. It was during my senior year that I took a class focusing on John Rawls.

My understanding of Rawls was greatly expanded while taking graduate seminars in the philosophy department. It was while listening to a public lecture by Utah philosopher Bruce Landesman on John Rawls that I decided to focus my studies on Rawls. That lecture was 11 years ago.

This last school year, I had the privilege of teaching political philosophy and American Heritage at BYU (after teaching similar courses for three years at BYU-Idaho). In addition to my teaching during this last year, I had a number of opportunities to participate in conferences dealing with Mormonism, Religion, and public affairs.

While these meetings and discussions at BYU have been a lot of fun, they have also reinforced two things. First…boy am I a liberal. This was my first heavy dose of conservative academia. Having been trained in the liberal egalitarian school, I was for the first time surrounded by Straussians and religious conservatives. While I expect this in most LDS settings, my department in Rexburg was quite moderate in terms of politics. This moderation was also found in the political science department at BYU, but these conferences had a considerable conservative, though still very intellectual, bent. Second, I am a secular thinker when it comes to politics. My attempt to form a religious argument for egalitarianism has become a secular critique of religious themes. Continue reading “Socrates, The Crito, and Me: On being a Ute”

There’s no bread, let them eat cake
There’s no end to what they’ll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth

But they’re marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Free the dungeons of the innocent
The king will kneel and let his kingdom rise

Bloodstained velvet, dirty lace
Naked fear on every face
See them bow their heads to die
As we would bow as they rode by

And we’re marching to Bastille Day
La guillotine will claim her bloody prize
Sing, oh choirs of cacophony
The king has kneeled, to let his kingdom rise

Lessons taught but never learned
All around us anger burns
Guide the future by the past
Long ago the mould was cast

For they marched up to Bastille Day
La guillotine claimed her bloody prize
Hear the echoes of the centuries
Power isn’t all that money buys

By Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart

Okay, not really. While many of us cringe at the heavy doses of American exceptionalism (often in the most cheesy forms) within Mormon Culture, maybe there is something valuable in viewing American and Christianity as being intertwined. However, not intertwined in a positive sense, like a manifest destiny, but a destructive one. Not sure if I can fully articulate this at the moment, but I think that David Bowie (with some help from Trent Reznor) give an interesting, and very disturbing, interpretation of this mixture of religion and empire.

Your thoughts? Oh, Happy Independence Day!

I almost made it 6 weeks without posting. Not commenting only lasted about two weeks. This worked as well as my attempt to quit Diet Coke. Oh well.

I have discussed my feelings about the bloggernacle in a number of places recently, both in private and in public forums. By putting up some posts about my projects, I hope I can focus my energies in a more productive way. It is also best that I focus my blogging on the friendly confines of my home here at Faith-Promoting Rumor.

As for my feelings about the LDS blogging community overall…well…this video is not only one of my favorites, but it gets to some of my feelings.

Dixie Chicks – Not Ready To Make Nice

Author’s note 2010: I had hoped to write a new post for this year, but given time constraints, I will again share this post. It was originally posted July 3, 2009.

Author’s note: The following is not particularly Mormon Studies (though Martha Nussbaum does hold an appointment in the Divinity School, as well as the Law School and Philosophy Department, at the University of Chicago). It is rooted in my Kantian/Rawlsian approach to Mormonism (which is my Christianity). I decided to post this after thinking about two posts elsewhere on the bloggernacle about Mormonism and Patriotism (here and here).

Introduction

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, I have had doubts about the way in which the lens of nationalism informs my view of the world. While many turned to the flag and the chapel in the aftermath of those attacks, both seemed superficial to me. The loss that day was not an American loss but a loss of humanity. Those lives had value not as Americans (of course, many were not Americans), but as human beings. That many rallied around the banner of patriotism disturbed me then as much then as it does today. To identify life with nationality seems to cheapen life.

My disposition towards patriotism and nationalism led me to approach Martha Nussbaum’s argument for cosmopolitanism in For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism with a sense of hope. Nussbaum’s argument is not itself a response to September 11 (since it appears five years earlier) but is instead a call for a new outlook in the age of globalization when we no longer can think of ourselves as strictly local actors. As Americans, we seem to often view the world as our background but at the same time limit our view of the world to those things that are within our own national interest. For Americans this is often the case because of our relative strength, wealth, and cultural influence. But this ease by which we view the world from either a nationalistic or realist point of view is troubling from a moral point of view.

In this post, I will look at Nussbaum’s argument for cosmopolitanism as an alternative to patriotism. After placing Nussbaum’s argument within the larger debate about cosmopolitanism, I will look at a number of critiques of her argument.

I will argue for a form of strong moral cosmopolitanism. I argue that this position is more morally justifiable that patriotism. I will also argue for moral cosmopolitanism over political cosmopolitanism. The purpose of this post is to provide an argument for cosmopolitanism in general and strong moral cosmopolitanism in particular.

Continue reading “Cosmopolitanism: An Alternative to Patriotism”

Blogging has been a big part of my life over the last 5 years.. I have gotten to know many interesting people. I have made friends. I have made enemies.

I have never posted consistently, but instead have chosen to comment…a lot. I am actually a very passive and mild person. While blogging, I have developed a voice. Actually, many voices…possibly more than there are in my head.

After 4 years with BYU-Idaho and this past year at BYU, I am moving on to a permanent position as a public community college. I am excited for a new start. Most of all, I am excited for the stability that this position will bring to my family.

I have been trying to figure out how Mormon blogging and the Bloggernacle will fit into my new phase of life. What I have decided is that they will not.

Instead, I should write a dissertation. Maybe an article or two. I think I will blog, but I am not sure about what.

I have quit the Bloggernacle once before. That time I was angry. Now I am at peace.

Thanks.